


Et tu

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:07:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26652676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Five times his siblings hurt number Five after he came back, one in which they made it better.Five angst, Hargreeves being clueless, feelings
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 434





	1. Chapter 1




"I heard a rumour that you shut up."

This was not the first time that Five had been on the wrong end of Allison's rumours. When they had been kids, Five had always been a bit of a know-it-all, someone who always needed to have the last word, someone that was _right, okay?_ so people weren't allowed to talk back at him.

And that annoyed people, and they were children, so yeah, no matter how much it had pissed him off, in restrospect, Five understood. They were kids, he wouldn't stop correcting people. It was understandable.

But now....

Now none of them were kids, and he was making all the efforts in the world to be as pleasant as possible, and measured and take into account other people's feelings. Now they were both adults and yet, yet, even if Allison knew that her power had caused many bad things and tried not to use it around Vanya and some of the others... She'd done it.

She'd used her power, and quieted him. And it was awful, because Five was already inhabiting a small body, easy to miss out, and if he didn't have his words, what did he have left? Just violence? He'd wanted to leave that behind.

But apparently, non-violent him was not important, had no place, no meaning.

He had no job, he had no partner, he couldn't even speak to his family without being so annoying that he had to be quieted.

It stung.

Five hadn't ever been that good at taking orders.

He didn't take orders from dad, he'd been alone for most of his life, he'd broken the contract with the comission.

And now he had no choice but to comply. He found himself trapped, trapped inside his own head, unable to express himself, to speak, to...

Words meant a whole deal to Five. He wasn't kind or likeable, he wasn't fun like some of the others, he had no charm. But he was smart, and it was that intelligence what he gave to the whole, to all of them. That was why it was worthwhile having him around, wasn't it? His wits could be helpful to the others.

But if you took his voice... Then he went back to being an isolated little boy, writing math on the walls, unheard, unwanted, trapped and unimportant.

The icing on the cake was the fact that Allison forgot. She forgot that she'd rumoured Five and only came to "check on him because you'v been a bit quiet lately" after two days.

What hurt more, the muzzling or the being forgotten?

Hard to tell.

But what was quite clear was that Allison's rushed apologies weren't enough.

ii.

Klaus knew some of what Five had gone through, because he'd been through it himself. He knew about the nightmares, and he knew about the constant need to be distracted, and he knew about the puking and crying and the flashbacks.

He knew, and still he joked about the apocalypse. Made fun of him.

And yes, Five knew that Klaus was only joking, Five knew that he joked about everything, about himself as well, that jokes were just the language in which Klaus communicated, but...

He'd meant some comment about something that bothered him (the coffee? who knew) and Klaus had said, pointedly:

"Come on, buddy, it's _not the end of the world_."

And Five understood the joke, and knew that it was a figure of speech, of course he did, of course he understood, but... He thought that Klaus of all people would know not to make that joke with him. He thought that Klaus of all people would understand just how much it hurt when people mocked your trauma.

Five had been in "the end of the world" for nearly all his life, and he had struggled to survive every day he'd been in "the end of the world" and the end of the world had taken his youth, and his health, and a huge part of his sanity...

So, no matter how he tried to rationalise it, hearing that from Klaus... It hurt.

iii.

Ben left without even ackowledging him.

He spoke and fought with Klaus, hugged Diego, helped Vanya take control.

He did all those things, and yet, apparently, he hadn't even told Klaus to say hi to him, to say that he was glad that Five was back, that he had been missed.

As far as Five knew, Ben hadn't even cared that Five had returned.

And they had been friends when they were kids, and he'd been there, with Klaus, with Diego... and then he left again, and hadn't said anything to him.

It really, really, hurt.




Luther threw him off the stairs. He'd been trying to save their lives, to warn them, to try and plan something so that they wouldn't die, or wouldn't find themselves trapped in the horrors where he'd been for most of his life, and Luther had just grabbed him, as if he was nothing but a bag of trash, ignored his warnings and threw him off the stairs.

They had grown up together, he and Luther. The bigger man knew that Five's powers sometimes failed him, that he was not always able to blink somewhere, that sometimes he was too tired, had no energy to blink. And if he'd fallen without being able to jump, well... Maybe he'd broken a couple of bones.

But Luther hadn't cared, because shutting him up and getting Five out of the way had been more important than the physical integrity of someone in the body of a teenager.

Five sighed. Held back tears.

It was difficult for him to be patient, to be gentle, to be apologetic and understanding. Five didn't udnerstand other people's minds, because he'd been alone his whole life. He'd been in absolute survival mode too, so, in his head, they were always running out of time, there was always something more important, something bigger, something that needed to be taken care of.... And yet.

He'd been patient with Luther. Apologised for something he'd had no control over. He really really had tried and made a huge effort.... only to be thrown as if he weighed nothing. As a discarded tissue. It really fucking hurt.

Even when he didn't hit the floor, even when he continued with his crusade, it had hurt.

v.

All those years, he had remembered Vanya, missed her and her conversations. Vanya had his back, she listened to him, she came to him for help. He'd been special to Vanya, or so he thought, and that was something he'd remembered very fondly all those years on his own.

Their reunion was... well, it was colder than expected.

Five would have liked for her to say something about how much she missed him, or how happy she was that he was back. She didn't. She just looked surprised, but not necessarily glad to see him, happy or relieved that he wasn't dead.

But that wasn't what hurt.

What hurt was the fact that after decades trying to survive and find them and save them, after having such high hopes to meet his sister again, to be understood, to be listened to... Vanya just blew him off.

Four and a half decades of trauma, of ash and death, a life time trying to get back to them, to find them, to save them, to be able to stay with them.

"Are you sure you didn't imagine it? I have the name of a therapist."

Five hadn't known words could hurt even more than swords, gunshot wounds, fire in one's lungs.

But they did.

Vanya told him he'd imagined the whole thing before even asking for details. This was a blow he hadn’t expected, and it came from the person he’d trusted more.

Five... Five hurt.

Even those closest to him hurt him, even them.


	2. Chapter 2

Diego was looking at it, almost afraid of touching it. It was so big and shiny.... and it took him and the others so long to find and to get it for themselves, he was afraid of everything.

It was nothing else but a brand new but vintage looking Elektra Q1 Belle Epoque coffee machine, a beauty of Swedish design and coffe making prowess that could do espressos, lattes, and give the roast an elegant, yet timeless touch. A professional machine that could make three cups of coffee at once, and that cost over 14 grand.

They all had to put money, and even though a big chunk of it came from dad's inheritance they all did put some of their own. It was a really beautiful machine, a grand gesture, and what was hopefully the beginning of a very very big apology. A huge ass apology that that they had been planning for weeks, after some terrible realisations.

Allison had come to Klaus and Diego after the incident where she rumoured him and then forgot, feeling overwhelmed by guilt. All their own worng doings with their tiniest brother started coming to the surface, bad taste jokes, mean words, times in which they simply forgot him or abandoned him.

No.

They needed to do right by him, starting now, and by apologizing for all the shit they'd put him through (the world was ending and they were difficult and not helpful at all! The world was ending and Vanya idn't fucking believe him, oh my god!) and as a new beginning in which they were more careful with their most traumatised little/older brother.

And that's how the idea of Five day came to be.

*

He'd had a weird dream, that night, a dream of being in some sort of never ending train ride, in which the scenery kept changing but at the same time being the same... And when he tried to find the beginning or the end of the train he found out that there was none, and...

Well, it had been an unpleasantly vivid dream and Five was looking forward to washing it away with some nice coffee and maybe some logic puzzles. They were always a tad too easy, but distracting enough to clear his head after a bad (or weird) night.

But as he went down he started seeing some signs, some arrows and the caption "Fives go here". Curious, he followed the arrows to the living room, where....

"SURPRISE!"

There they were, his brothers and sisters, under a big banner that said, in big black letters: "Happy Five day".

"What.....?"

"We have... We realised that all those years in the apocalypse, you grew up without any kind of brithdays parties, presents, anything like that."Luther started. "Although today is not our birthday, we decided to throw you a party to start making up for all those birthdays that you were alone, in that hellish world.

Five was rendered speechless.

"It's also our way of saying thank you, or at least starting." Vanya continued. "Thank you for fighting to get back to us, thank you for risking your life for us, thank you for giving us a chance to keep living when everything was about to go to hell and... Thank you for not going against me when you found out about me, Five. I owe you my life and you've given me... You've given me more than you know. Me and all of us."

That was... Five was starting to feel a weight on his throat, but refused to ackowledge it.

Next up was Allison:

"This is also our way to say sorry. Not just sorry for bad taste jokes or ignoring the apocalypse, it's also a sorry for not making you feel more welcome, a sorry for not being there for you when you needed us, a sorry for having hurt you. Because we are, and I am, so terribly sorry, Five. You've saved us from certain doom, from ourselves, you... you missed us, and I don't think we made it clear enough that we missed you too."

Five's eyes were not tearing up. They really weren't.

"So!" Klaus continued "For today, most glorious Five day, we have planned a Five Hargreeves stuff extravaganzza! We have some math stuff from some Doctor Pecknold!"

"We're going to see Dr Pecknold?"

"Better yet, she's coming here, to talk about math with you!" Klaus continued. "And not just that! We have a visit to an organic peanut butter factory place so you can get so much peanut butter that you can make an entire Five of fluffer nutter sandwiches! We have margaritas! And.... we have.... drum roll pleaseeeeeee....."

The drum rolling was a bit ridiculous, but Five found himself smiling despite himself.

"THIS!!"

And there it was, pink and golden and big and shiny, easily the most beautiful coffee machine Five had ever seen. Big. Majestic. You could practically smell how good the coffee was going to be.

"Guys..."

"We all pitched in." Diego said "You've saved our lives time and time again, done all the hard work for us, this was the least we could do. Happy Five day, buddy. Thanks for being here for us, thanks.... for being you."

Five actually genuinely smiled, simply happy, without malice or irony. His eyes were big, still not quite believing what was happening. Apart from the math lady, there was also the first time "Five's theme" was played, a Vanya Hargreeves original composed for him and him alone.

The apologies were many, all along the day, and they were long and heartfelt. The coffee was really very good. They had a lot of fun tasting peanut butter and getting their heart rates to a thousand from too much coffee. It really was a good day-

It's the people closest to you the ones that can hurt you the worst...

But also bring you the most joy.

Five smiled.

Despite everything, the bad days and the worse days...

He had a family that loved him.

And a fancy new coffee machine.

That day, life wasn't that bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!
> 
> you know you want to comment!


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